As anyone who has stared at the City of Waterloo skyline in recent years can tell you, there’s a movement afoot to build up instead of out.

The region has been identified as an area of future growth in the province’s Places to Grow Act, and by 2031 the city is expected to be home to 150,000 people. Those people have to go somewhere, and the city is running out of space near its borders. The solution is intensification.

But in its quest to try and accommodate future residents, is the city losing sight of where it came from? As more condo and apartment tower proposals pass over the desks of city staff, and ultimately come before city councillors for discussion and debate, the city is caught between a rock and a hard place of trying to manage future growth with current concerns.

With the news this week that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of St. Sophia is considering selling its home for the past 55 years at the corner of King and Noecker Street, no doubt others who live or work along King Street or other major routes are beginning to wonder what their neighbourhood might look like in the coming years.

Parishioners of St. Sophia are worried about construction noise and rowdy residents once the building is complete. They say the church has already suffered structural damage from other construction projects on King Street.

This isn’t the first contentious project to come before council, either — trail enthusiasts may recall Waterloo city council moved a portion of the Iron Horse Trail last summer to make more space for a nearby condo project.

Most of us understand the pressure the city is under to accommodate tens of thousands of new residents in the coming decades, but it is incumbent on our politicians and city planners to ensure the needs and wants of tomorrow’s residents do not outweigh the needs and wants of those who live here today.